


Hold My Number

by katajainen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Board Game references, Embarrassing Injuries, First Meetings, Fluff, Humor, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced excessive drinking, M/M, Meet-Cute, Sex Toys (mentioned), bc that's the way i geek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29130831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen
Summary: It's a Saturday night at the A&E, and Gimli only wants to get to the triage nurse and be done with this whole stupid business.That is, until he meets a tall, dark stranger (a ridiculously pretty one).
Relationships: Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf
Comments: 7
Kudos: 58





	Hold My Number

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by [this article](https://defector.com/what-did-we-get-stuck-in-our-rectums-last-year/) (on objects people have had removed from various orifices), but actually rather innocent. (Also the setting is based on how our local A&E operates, because for once, I couldn't be bothered to do too much research lol)
> 
> My thanks to [Roselightfairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy) for the linguistic nitpicking and for squeeing in all the right places!

He should have expected the noisy drunks. 

It was a Saturday night, but Gimli had come to the A&E braced for wailing children, not grown men moaning like they were dying when it looked their worst problem was a twisted ankle and acute lack of a pint.

Then again, maybe he shouldn’t be faulted for not putting two and two together in his current state of mind. But _man,_ did he miss his earphones.

And that was the one thing he couldn’t help himself to right now.

With a sigh, Gimli slid lower in the slippery cup of the plastic chair. His ear itched, and he only caught himself when his hand was halfway up to scratch it. A buzzer sounded above him, and in his lopsided hearing, the forcefully cheery chime seemed to issue from everywhere and nowhere at once. Gimli peered up at the display: the blinking number indicated there were still about twenty people ahead of him in the queue. Then again, it had been thirty when he’d come in an hour ago. He stared down at the ticket in his hand without actually seeing it and contemplated the benefits of getting up versus the danger of losing his seat. Looking around, he judged the crowd thin enough – and his arse _was_ going to sleep.

He got a soda and a chocolate bar from the vending machine at the back of the room, and walking back, he saw his previous seat was still free – but the one next to it was now occupied by the most beautiful man he’d seen– well, maybe not ever, but in a long time anyway.

Now, anyone of Gimli’s height was pretty much predestined to go for taller men, but this fellow had managed to fold his lanky frame into the ridiculous chair in such a poised, economical way that it – coupled with the dark hair pulled into a messy knot at the nape of his neck – made Gimli think of a dancer. And it wasn’t a bad look, not by half.

Which was why, instead of an empty seat further down, Gimli plopped himself back into the chair he’d vacated only minutes ago. Mr. Tall and Pretty glanced up from his phone, but said nothing. Gimli unwrapped the chocolate and ate it watching the clock on the opposite wall crawl forward another two minutes. He’d just popped his soda when the buzzer chimed again. They both snapped their head up like a pair of trained dogs, and any other time Gimli might have laughed. Now, he only observed the digits blinking one step closer to his own release from this purgatory of the unfortunate and the foolish.

His ear itched, and for another two minutes, he resisted the urge to stick his finger in it for a good wiggle.

‘Hey.’

The man had a lovely voice, soft and smooth like halfway into singing, and it was monstrously _unfair,_ because Gimli could have been sitting somewhere with dim lights and good music with a stiff drink in his hand, angling to find out if a tall dark stranger could be talked into any of the _million_ better ways of spending a Saturday night than numbing his arse in the echoing, fluorescent-lit and disinfectant-sprayed cavern of the A&E.

However, what came out of his mouth as he looked up into the ridiculously well-sculpted face that made him update his initial assumption to ‘model’, was none of those thoughts but a plain ‘Yes?’. Because he hadn’t quite lost the entirety of his wits or self-preservation. Yet.

‘Sorry–’ The man held up a queue ticket. ‘Could you– could you hold this for me? I need the loo and– look, you can use it if it comes up, it shouldn’t be long anymore.’ There was an edge of desperation in his voice that made Gimli reach out despite his better judgment.

‘Thanks,’ the man breathed, leaving him with a slip of paper and a number that was only a couple digits smaller than his own. “Shouldn’t be long” indeed. And now he might have caught a stomach flu on top of everything else.

He waited for another half an hour, then nodded off in spite of his best efforts only to be startled awake by the buzzer. He blinked at the display: eleven people before him– or seven, depending on which ticket he was looking at. Also he wasn’t alone anymore.

‘I have your number,’ Gimli blurted out.

Mr. Tall and Pretty gave him a small smile and took back his ticket. And then, unbelievably, proceeded to dig out a pen from his messenger bag and scribble something on the flipside.

_‘Now_ you do,’ he said, handing the slip of paper back to Gimli.

‘No!’ said Gimli, before quickly back-tracking. ‘I mean, I can’t take your turn–’

The pretty nameless stranger laid a hand on his forearm. ‘It’s all right, ‘ he said and gently eased both crumpled tickets from Gimli’s death grip. ‘See? It’s not that big of a difference. Four numbers– I can wait that much longer. You go first. My treat.’ And he handed Gimli the smaller number.

‘If you’re sure…’ Gimli scanned the flipside– ‘Legolas.’

‘I’m good–’ He paused, then laughed, a low and soft chuckle. ‘I’m afraid I missed your name.’

‘Ah, of course.’ Gimli smiled in turn. ‘Gimli. Pleased to meet you.’

‘Likewise.’ Legolas shook his hand; his grip was firm but his palm was sweaty, as if he was nervous– or ill.

‘Are you sure you don’t–’

‘No.’ Legolas shook his head. ‘Now, Gimli, want to tell me what happened to your ear?’

‘What– how could you tell?’

‘You keep your head tilted to one side–’ he mirrored Gimli’s pose– ‘and you keep twitching like you want to scratch it but know you shouldn’t.’ He shrugged. ‘My sister’s a doctor– you can’t help picking up a few things.’

‘More like she’s Sherlock Holmes in disguise–’ Gimli tugged at his beard, then stopped when he realised what he was doing. There was a reason he didn’t play poker. ‘Promise you won’t laugh.’

‘Cross my heart,’ said Legolas solemnly.

‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep on the couch,’ started Gimli.

‘People often don’t.’

‘Well, I was supposed to be babysitting, so I really shouldn’t have. Because my niece is a little devil.’

Legolas nodded gravely. ‘I’m sure she gets it from your side of the family.’

‘Har har.’ But Gimli couldn’t help smiling. ‘Anyway, in my defense, I had already put her to bed, so she had no business being in the living room.’

‘And she’s how old again?’

‘Four,’ Gimli said grimly. ‘With the wicked wits of a 400-year-old.’

‘Ah.’ Legolas paused and pressed a finger to his mouth. ‘If I’m honest, I don’t know the least thing about children. I’m just making soothing noises.’

Gimli snorted. ‘It’s fine. It’s working.’ A pretty face was a pretty face and a distraction was a distraction. ‘To cut a long story short, she thought it would be a good idea to stuff an entire crayon into my ear.’ He paused and looked at Legolas, but the other man looked perfectly composed.

‘And then you woke up.’

‘If only! Not until my sister came home. The damn kid was asleep on the rug, Netflix was running _The Witcher_ on autoplay…’ It hadn’t been one of his finest moments.

Legolas’s pretty face twisted in sympathy. ‘I can imagine.’

‘No you can’t. Because she spooked me and I fell from the couch and broke off the crayon. Except for the tip, of course.’ He pointed at his ear. ‘And here we are.’ After an hour of sotto voce castigation and painful prodding with too-big tweezers, of course. He glanced at his companion.

Legolas was very quiet, and holding onto his own knees with a deathgrip that almost managed to crease his skintight jeans. Almost.

‘I know I promised,’ he said slowly, his words directed at the grey linoleum floor. ‘But I’m picturing it, and–’ He hunched forward, his shoulders shaking with silent mirth.

‘Hrmph. Well, yes. Of course it’s funny when you're not the one with stuff stuck where no stuff should be stuck. But say–’ Gimli poked at his arm– ‘what’s the deal with you? Food poisoning?’

‘If only,’ said Legolas, his voice somewhat muffled against his knees. As he sat up, Gimli thought his cheeks were a shade darker than before.

‘We had a game night,’ he began. ‘And we were doing all right– or we thought, only we ended up being eaten by bloody damn _Ithaqua_ in the end–’

‘Don’t tell me: Arkham Horror.’

‘Yeah. And it was so stupid: Ithaqua is only ever a stamina drain, we even had the whole party minus one, and still–’ Legolas huffed through his nose. ‘So we went to a bar, after, then another, and it got quite long and I don’t remember most of it… so you play board games, too?’

And that was grasping for straws if Gimli ever saw it, and he was tempted to pry, but a distraction was a distraction, and a pretty stranger was still a stranger. ‘A bit, yeah. Just waiting for Elma to get old enough for anything more complex than memory games.’

‘Got to start them off young, right?’

Gimli hummed in thought. ‘Something like that.’ His ear itched, and there was still an hour’s worth of people between him and the triage nurse, no matter the ticket swap. ‘Hey, you’ve tried Terraforming Mars yet? I’m hearing a lot of buzz about it, but I’m not so sure.’

Legolas’s whole face lit up. ‘Actually–’

Where time had previously seemed to crawl with painful slowness, it now passed almost unnoticed, punctuated by infrequent buzzer sounds that Gimli eventually began to tune out– it was his luck Legolas didn’t.

When the buzzer sounded once more, he glanced up and his rant about low player interaction cut off mid-word. ‘It’s your number,’ he hissed, prodding hard at Gimli’s arm. ‘Go!’

‘I–’ said Gimli, scrambling up on legs gone stiff from sitting still, ‘I’ll call you.’

‘You have my number.’

✦ ✦ ✦

Ten minutes later, Gimli closed the door behind him, stuck a finger in his ear – now sans blue crayon – and wiggled it to his heart’s content. Ahh. Some things went entirely unappreciated until you had to do without. He started at the direction of the Exit sign that would likely take him to the parking lot, but then paused. Legolas had been only four numbers behind him. So he leaned against the wall and dug out his phone to text his sister, not that he expected a reply this time of night.

Forty-five minutes later, it occurred to him that the other man might have been admitted to a ward. He hadn’t looked that ill, but you couldn’t always tell. He was just contemplating if sending a text would appear stalkerish or concerned, when the door opened and Legolas came through, fairly skipping. His face lit up at the sight of Gimli, and he rushed over, grabbing him by the shoulders.

‘There’s nothing!’ he declared. ‘I thought–’ he shook his head, laughing– ‘but there’s nothing–’ He was so close now Gimli could feel the warmth of his breath as he sighed. Legolas seemed to realise this as well, for he pulled back, though without loosening his grip.

‘Why are you still here?’

‘I– ‘ Gimli shrugged, considering, perhaps too late, the possibility of _this_ appearing stalkerish. ‘I thought I’d ask you to share a ride, in case we’re going in the same direction.’

‘Now that’s a capital idea,’ said Legolas and squeezed at his shoulder once before letting go.

Naturally, it turned out that they lived at opposite ends of the city, so they ended up in Gimli’s flat, where Legolas poked at his bookshelf, spent too long staring at his board game collection and proceeded to complain about the Earl Grey (‘If I had the power, I would outlaw tea bags!’). Really, Gimli should have chucked him out at that point.

But it was also the point where the doorbell rang to announce the arrival of pizza – that Legolas had somehow managed to order _while_ chatting nonstop in the cab. And really, at this early on a Sunday, Gimli was not one to turn down shared hot cheese.

✦ ✦ ✦

Gimli’s arm had gone to sleep, he was sticky with sweat and he didn’t really want to open his eyes, because his mouth tasted like something deceased and he’d rather not add a headache to the mix.

‘I know you’re awake,’ said a voice, very close by. ‘I know, because you stopped snoring.’ A single finger poked him at the ribs, hard.

‘Grrmmgbgerroff–’

The light was less cruel than Gimli had feared, and the voice belonged to Legolas, who was lying half on top of him.

‘All right, all right,’ Gimli muttered and pulled his left hand free from where it had been wedged between the back of the sofa and Legolas, grimacing at the pins and needles as the circulation returned. His bleary gaze landed on the still-open – and mostly-empty – bottle of Iron Hills grain spirits sitting on the coffee table between the congealed pizza remains and a pack of haphazardly stacked cards.

Ah. Sushi Go! as a drinking game (play Miso Soup, take a drink) had seemed like a good idea at the time, the spirits less so, but it had been the only thing they would both agree on. As he watched, Legolas sat up and began to root among the debris, eventually brandishing the cork with a triumphant ‘Ha!’ His hair had come loose from the bun, and there was a pillow crease on his cheek, probably from Gimli’s shirt. The mussed-up look made him seem softer, less jittery around the edges.

‘What?’ said Legolas, catching him looking.

‘Nothing,’ Gimli said quickly.

‘Don’t you “nothing” me.’ For a long moment he looked at Gimli without a word, a single sharp line drawn between his dark brows. It was more than slightly menacing, and Gimli fought the sudden urge to squirm. The longer it went on, the more intensely he felt like he was as likely to shove Legolas off the sofa as to snog him silly, and even to his hangover-sluggish brain, both seemed like equally risky options.

Which is why he was caught entirely off-guard when Legolas swooped down and pressed a light kiss to his mouth, all soft and morning-breath-safe. 

‘All right,’ Legolas said, and stood up while Gimli gawped at him. ‘Come on– I need a shower, you need a shower, and we’re not getting any lying around here.’

‘Now hold on a minute–’ Gimli caught hold of the closest thing– Legolas’s T-shirt – and hauled him back down. Yes, they both tasted like stale vodka, greasy cheese and open-mouthed drunken stupor, but you just didn’t go first-kissing people like you’d been married twenty years.

‘Toothbrush, too,’ said Legolas a little while later, now flushed and even more rumpled, ‘if you don’t mind sharing?’

‘Perhaps this once,’ Gimli conceded, ‘if the counter-offer is good enough,’ he added with a wink.

Legolas snorted and started towards the bathroom, shedding clothes on the way.

The shower, of course, was far too small for two grown people, but it was marvelous as well, hot and too close, and the acoustics proved to be just about perfect when Gimli dropped down to his knees, with long, beautiful dancer’s fingers caught in his hair.

He did let Legolas borrow his toothbrush, after.

✦ ✦ ✦

Some months later.

Gimli looked up from the toy box he’d pulled from Legolas’s bookshelf. ‘Love,’ he said, puzzled and amused in equal terms, ‘care to tell me why there is about three feet of paracord attached to these anal beads?’ He let the curious assembly dangle from his hand.

‘Ah. That’s–’ Legolas looked contrite of a sudden, as much as was possible while wearing only a shirt, one of those white pillowy things that Gimli thought made him look like a fantasy pirate, and a very healthy hard-on. ‘Promise you won’t laugh.’

‘Would I ever?’

‘I would if you never.’

Gimli sat down on the bed, the box in his lap. Legolas caught the end of the cord, twisting it around one finger. ‘Remember when we met? When I told you about the game night?’

Gimli nodded but said nothing. He had been curious, of course he had, but had resisted the urge to pry, and now it looked like his restraint would be rewarded.

’The thing is… I got stupidly, ridiculously, massively drunk… and came home alone.’ Legolas shook his head. ‘The details are a bit hazy, but I do know that I woke up, with all of this– ‘ he gestured at the contents of the box– ‘spread all over the bed.’ He picked up a pink vibe with a long, trailing cord. ‘I had _this_ in my hand, and it was still buzzing. And I couldn’t find the beads anywhere. Not that day, nor after I was done with the hangover.’

Gears turned in Gimli’s head and connected with a click. ‘You thought you’d put them in… and lost them? That’s why you were at the A&E, that’s why–’ He pressed his fist to his lips to keep the laughter in, then waved his free hand. ‘Sorry, it’s just–’

‘You haven’t heard the best part yet,’ said Legolas. ‘I told you my sister’s a doctor. But I didn’t tell you where she works.’

‘No…’

‘Yes. And it’s not like I have her shifts memorised. I would have never heard the end of it.’

‘Yet you walked off scot free.’

‘So I did, lucky me.’

‘And the beads turned up eventually?’

Legolas made a face. ‘Not until two days ago. I had to move the TV stand, and someone– ‘ Legolas glared at Cat currently stretched out in a golden spot of sunlight on the wooden floor– ‘had a little stash. I think I found a dozen actual cat toys, a load of rubbish–’

‘And your arse beads.’

‘And my arse beads.’

For a moment, Gimli said nothing. Then he got up and walked across the room, leaving the toy box on the bed. ‘Thank you,’ he said solemnly, bending down to scratch the cat under his white chin. ‘For being a thieving little goblin. I might have never met your loyal servant otherwise–’

‘Oi!’ said Legolas.

‘Don’t mind him. He hasn’t been around your people long enough to learn manners yet,’ said Gimli and kept on scratching as Cat rolled onto his back, one orange-striped front paw wrapping proprietarily around his wrist. As he had heard Legolas tell him, it was not so much as he had found a cat rather than been adopted by one. And by the time he’d realised the kitten was staying for good, it was already responding to “Cat”, so the name had stuck.

‘What I was saying, ‘ Gimli went on, ‘is that it would have been a pity if I never knew him. Although he’s rubbish at strategy–’

‘If you think I’ll stand and listen to your maligning–’

‘“When in doubt, shoot” only ever works in Colt Express, dearest,’ said Gimli and kept scratching the orange tabby. ‘And I was about to say that we should learn bridge, or one of those old-fashioned teamplay card games; I’d count the cards and you’d tell me whose poker face is failing. We’d make a killing.’

‘You’re just saying that to make nice.’ Legolas flopped down on the floor next to the cat and stretched out on his back, peering up at him. ‘Why did you never learn chess, then, with your head for numbers?’

‘I never said I didn’t. Only it’s… cold, somehow. Clinical. I like something with more interaction, a slight bit of chance to it. Fool’s luck.’ He hummed and trailed one finger up Legolas’s bare leg. ‘Like meeting silly pretty strangers at A&E.’

Legolas stuck out his tongue at him as he went back to the toy box. ‘Now then. Since you’ve been missing out on this treat,’ said Gimli, picking up the string of beads, ‘we’ll make it today’s special. Considering it has a safety line on and everything.’

‘Careful. You wouldn’t want to have to seek professional help to get it removed.’ But Legolas didn’t move, only drew one knee lazily up and reached out to scratch Cat between the ears. ‘Better make it worth my while.’

‘Oh, that I will,’ said Gimli, wrapping the paracord around his wrist.

Five minutes later, Cat got up and retreated to the laundry basket because the sunbeam was getting far too crowded.

**Author's Note:**

> I've played all the games mentioned here, _except_ Terraforming Mars (yet), so that's based on reviews only.


End file.
